Posted by chicagomedia.org on January 16, 2009 at 11:40:16:
The two-year anniversary of Citadel's ABC deal comes up on June 12.
June 2007 is when Citadel consummated its high-priced deal with Disney for the 22 ABC Radio stations plus ABC Radio Networks - "high priced" in the bitter-cold light of a recession, that is. My understanding is that Citadel agreed that if any of the managers it inherited left before the two-year mark, it would handle their severance the same way Disney would've. That's kept some people on the job. But I'm already hearing about two people who might be departing, come June, and there could be more. Those are people the industry can ill-afford to lose. Citadel's Farid Suleman is looking at another kind of event in June. Doesn't he have a lump-sum payment due to Disney? The Burbank folks made a killer deal for themselves in sheer dollar terms - Bob Iger made the strategic decision that Michael Eisner had always refused, and he dumped his radio division. It went into something like freefall during the long purgatory before the deal closed to Citadel. Iger even had to re-do the terms, at Citadel's insistence. But Citadel's now saddled with a mountain of debt, and that complex Reverse Morris Trust that still gives Disney a big tax advantage. So mark June 12 on your barely-used 2009 calendar.
(Tom Taylor)